Over the last decade, there has been a substantial increase in the use and deployment of wireless client devices, from dual-mode smartphones to tablets capable of operating in accordance with a particular Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard. With “wireless” becoming the de-facto medium for connectivity among users, it has become increasingly important for network systems to intelligently manage connections.
For example, multiple access points may jointly serve a common area. Accordingly, a client device operating in this area may be able to associate with two or more of the access points such that the access points may provide network access to the client device. Although the client device may have many options with respect to access point association, to ensure efficient communications the network system must determine an optimal access point for the client device.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.